Learning and Riding

The past few days have been mostly relaxing and attempting to get over jet lag, so there hasn’t been much to report. Yesterday the training began but in a fun way. We split up and went to a few different churches, and the met up later for lunch at my Aunt Karen’s and Uncle Greg’s flat, where I will be staying when I get back from Tororo.

I went to Greg and Karen’s church called Zana Presbyterian. The church was really brilliant. It had two pastors speaking simultaneously in Luganda ( the language of Kampala) and English. Unfortunately, other than the singing which was awesome and in both languages, I do not have much detail to give. As we sat waiting to go to church we had a discussion about how we were doing with jet lag and everyone was still struggling with it, but I thought I was over it and bragged to that effect. I guess God wanted to humble me because as soon as the sermon started, it was almost impossible for me to stay awake. I tried everything, I even would pinch myself every time my lids would droop. But it was to no avail, the only moment I was awake for the sermon was when the pastor did an imitation of Shaggy (the singer who sings “ girl you’re my angel, my darling angel” who is in Uganda at the moment). After church we all met up at the flat and had a delicious African meal and watched the movie City of Joy to get us to think about cross culture issues.

We woke up bright and early today to begin in-depth training. To begin each day, two of us will give our testimonies. Today, Jeremy and I gave our testimonies. I am not an eloquent speaker by any means, but it was good to give my testimony because one I will most likely have to give it many times while I am here, and two it was a really cool way to see how God used different things in my life to bring me to this place. Then we did some language and culture training. We split up by regions we are going to and went to study with a local from our region who could teach us language and culture. Laura and I went to work with a really cool guy named Ben who is actually from Tororo and speaks Japadhola, the local language. It is hard! Here is a sample:

• • Yoga – Hello
• • Yoga bende – I am fine
• • In’tye nadi – how are you?
• • Artye maber, kosaini – I am fine, how are you?
• • Ichiewi nede- Good morning/ how did you wake up?

Then after some delicious lunch of bread and avocado and eggs, we played Frisbee with the guard and the headed out to a place called Mildmay. Mildmay is local HIV/AIDs clinic that was invited to start in Kampala in 1998. This place was brilliant. I cannot even begin to describe it. It was better than any hospital I have seen, even better than most I have seen in the US. It was good to be at Mildmay and get a backround of HIV/AIDs and how it really truly has effected the people and the culture here.

On the way home we took public transportation. We road the Matatu back from Mildmay to the base of the Matoke Inn road.. The Matatu is always an interesting ride. For those of you who don’t know what it is, it’s a 15 passenger van that ends up holding 20+ people. Then we road bodas(motorcycle taxis) up the hill. My driver was awesome, as I sat side saddle on the back of his motorbike, only holding on occasionally, he made a point of beating the rest of the groups bodas. He speed over and around speed bumps and went so fast. Needless to say we got there first. It was so much fun.

The rest of the week will be about the same. I leave for Tororo Friday, so I will probably put up one update before then.